Sunday:

We all arrived at different times at the Albuquerque Airport and had lunch there at Garduno's. Then we left straight for Fenton Hill Observatory to learn about the raptor telescope system (3 autonomous fast-slewing telescopes to record images of the sky and electronically compare them to see if any transient events occurred.) Other than that we also learned about the geothermal energy research that was done at the site, and of course the man-killing chains of the rollaway roofs. After that we went back to Los Alamos to settle into the hotel and had pizza for dinner. After that we played a few hands of cards and then my roommate Joe Lohman and I went back to the room and went to bed.

Monday:

We woke up Monday and went straight to LANL to get our badges and get confused about social security numbers. And then went back to the hotel for breakfast. After that we went to Bradbury Science Museum to hear a lecture on the history of Los Alamos. After the lecture we looked around the museum and learned all about the history of nuclear weapons. After Bradbury we went to the Canyon School Complex to hear a lecture on CCD (charge coupled device) cameras from one of our investigators, Don Casperson. CCD cameras use silicon chips to measure the amount of electrons produced by photons in a ray of light. This is used to measure the intensity of light by each individual pixel which helps to determine the brightness of stars with considerable accuracy. Following that lecture we went to lunch and came back for a talk on Asteroid Observation from John O'donnell. One of our projects over these two weeks will be to observe the asteroid 532 Herculina and project the radius of its orbit. After this lecture we went to Smith's to get food for the night lunch and got everything from California rolls to cheesecake to our watermelon which we dubbed "Bucky". The next lecture was again by Don Casperson on basic telescope usage. After that lecture we went back to the hotel for about an hour to get ready for the night observation at Fenton Hill. After arriving at the observatory we set up the telescopes and had dinner and talked till the sun was went down. Unfortunately, the sky was somewhat cloudy and we only saw a few constellations. After stargazing for a few hours we packed up and went back to the hotel. At about 1:00 A.M. we got back to the hotel and settled in with World's Worst Drivers.

Tuesday:

We got up at about noon and went to a Chinese Restaurant for breakfast. After breakfast we went back to the canyon school complex and heard a lecture from principal investigator Frank Timmes on naked eye astronomy. And now I'm writing this blog and we our about to hear another lecture. Well the lecture was about the phases of the moon and their common misinterpretations. After we heard this lecture we went to dinner at the center street grill. Later after going back to the room to get ready we departed once more for Fenton Hill observatory. That night was much longer. We began by setting up and leveling the telescope tripods and then calibrating the telescope computers by inputting the coordinates of two prominent stars. After this was done we could, with some success, use the telescope's computers to automatically slew to random night-sky objects. Given this capability we zoomed around to a great many objects, some better than others, and there was much giddiness. After this we began trying to find the asteroid we were to track-532 Herculina. After a few attempts to automatically slew to the asteroid, we discovered that our telescopes' calibrations were not completely accurate. Upon this discovery we began the laborious process of "star-hopping" from a well-known star, serpens omicron, to the asteroid. Ser omicron was close to the asteroid and from there we centered the telescopes on nearby stars, steadily getting closer to the asteroid, until we were able to center on 532 Herculina and record it's coordinates and the time at which we sited it. After that we went inside the building and had a midnight lunch, chatted and hung out for an hour or two. After that we came back outside into the freezing cold and re-checked the asteroid to see whether it had moved and it did, thus confirming it was indeed an asteroid. After that we made some sketches and took down information, looked at more stars, saw Venus and went home. I also forgot to mention that just before sunset we saw the ISS go across the sky and throughout the course of the night we saw all nine planets. On the ride home most of us fell asleep and near the end of the ride you could see the sunrise, by the time I got to sleep it was 6:00 A.M., 21 hours from when I woke up the day before.

Wednesday

After an all too brief sleep, we woke up at 1:00 P.M. and went to Bob's Bodacious BBQ for breakfast. After that we went to the Canyon School Complex and Heard a talk from Frank Timmes on Geocentric theory, other old astronomical concepts, and on how astronomy effects the calendar and time measurement. After that we went over our observations on the asteroid with John O'donnell. We averaged our results and found the coordinates of the asteroid. Now I am blogging and we intend to go roller skating. Later tonight we will find the asteroid again, record the new information, and use the mead telescope star catalog to find other cool stuff. I also forgot to mention that a few minutes ago ( 5:00 P.M. exactly) we saw a house burning down a few streets over. Well we went to the hotel and then went to the skating rink where we played tag and fell down A LOT. After that we had pizza and leg-wrestled outside. From there we went to Fenton Hill and right away got the got the telescopes calibrated. Jon and I calibrated one of the telescoped very well to Antares and Deneb and after that found the H-532 within a few minutes. After taking our sketches we moved our field of view so that we could have stars in a line and then use John's (Adult john) star maps to find the names of those stars. We did this so we could use linear Interpolation to find the approximate coordinates of the asteroid. After we did that we used our well calibrated telescope to zoom around to various night-sky objects such as globular clusters, open clusters, nebulas, and galaxies. After that we had a midnight lunch. Then we went back outside into the freezing cold to record the adjusted position of the asteroid. After that we went back the hotel and got to sleep at around 5:00.

Thursday.

We woke up and went to a Mexican restaurant for breakfast and then threw a frisbee in the park. After that we went to the school where Scott Johnson teaches and played with the Gecko. After visiting we went to the aptly named black hole, a giant garage sale which encompasses several large buildings. It was there that John and I were inspired to build something that blows up. From the black hole we went to a Thai restaurant and then to the Bradbury science museum to hear a lecture on Neutrino astronomy. Afterwards we visited a bookstore and observed that the sky was somewhat cloudy, making an observation session not promising. This meant a free night, so we went back to the hotel and watched COPS, played cards, and ate Doritos into the wee hours of the night.

Friday:

Friday morning we had to wake up early for a geology tour of the Jemez mountains at 8:00. We all piled into the van and went around to various stops learning about the Caldera, Pumice rock, and other volcanic activity. We also gathered fossils from limestone deposits of creatures from ancient oceans. We had lunch at a cool cowboy restaurant and then went to Soda Dam. At Soda Dam we climbed around rocks and went into little caves until we had to leave. From there we went back to Los Alamos and then straight to the Black Hole to pick up more parts. This time we got an 8 volt regulator, leads, and another electric motor, I'll leave the rest to the imagination. After that we went to play frisbee for an hour or so and went to Quiznos. After that we played frisbee until another Lecture at the Bradbury, this time from Frank Timmes on Supernovae. After that, an observing session was scrubbed once again so we all went to get ice cream and then went to see a movie. From the movie we walked back down to the park and chatted there for an hour or so until midnight, then we walked back to the hotel where once again we ate Doritos, watched COPS, blew stuff up, and there was much rejoicing.

Saturday:

Well it's Saturday and we just heard a lecture from John on further calculation of asteroid orbits. After that we heard a lecture from frank on light and atoms which discussed the electromagnetic spectrum and how we can use it to determine the properties and composition of stellar matter. Now we are blogging more and are about to do laundry, after that we will go to a social at Don's house and hopefully go to an observing session from there. Well that was fun , at the social we played a rousing game of charades and then watched Contact. It was too cloudy for an observing session so from there we went back to the hotel and got into the pool for a few hours and fought for the heating jets, it was COLD! After that we went back to the room and played cards for an hour or so and then went to bed, much to our dismay, COPS was not on.

Sunday:

Well I just woke up, some people went to church, but in either case we walked over to the canyon school at around noon and heard a lecture from Patrick on planets, people, and other products of stellar evolution. After that we had a short discussion on the big bang and why it is impossible to tell it’s origin due to matters about curvature of space, relativity, and other stuff I don't understand. Now we are blogging and are about to get lunch from Qiuzno's, then we are goingto Bandelier, for a hike food's here, bye. Wow, that was cool. We saw a bunch of cool and really big Indian ruins and then climbed up into cliffs to see other ones. We walked along a trail and then went up into some more cliffs where we went down into an old Indian ceremonial chamber. On the way back Joe picked up a huge branch and carried on his back all the way back to the visitor center telling people along the way to watch for falling branches. After that we came back for dinner and then went observing at Fenton Hill to observe Messier objects and do some follow up observations on the asteroids. We sketched a spiral galaxy, an elliptical galaxy, a globular cluster, and an open cluster. After that it got ridiculously cold and we drove back to the hotel.

Monday:

We woke up Monday and went to a lecture on galaxies at CSC. After that we went to Santa Fe plaza to look around at stores, some more uppity than others, and then meet back at the bandstand to go to Scott's house for dinner where we played pool and ate really good Lasagna. After that we went to the Santa Fe opera to see Carmen, which, aside from the opera, was a fantastic experience in itself as the opera house overlooks the mountains and is semi-open air so you could see the sun setting behind the mountains. The architecture of the building was also fantastic. Joe was just as impressed with the opera as I was (see his journal). After the opera we went back to Los Alamos and went to bed.

Tuesday:

On Tuesday we got up early to go to the Very Large Array radio telescope near Soccoro. After getting lunch in Socorro we went the rest of the way down to the VLA where we took a tour of one of the radio dishes and got up inside it. After that we toured the control room and learned about the new technology they were going to install. From there we went back to have dinner in Socorro and then went the rest of the three hours back to Los Alamos where we saw a really cool thunder storm. When we arrived got to see Joe fall flat on his back and hit his head on the car door due to his sagely decision to let his left leg go completely numb in the car. Following the fall of Joe we went to watch COPS and then went to bed because we were so tire from our early call.

Wednesday:

We woke up at 10:30 to go to CSC for a lecture on Gamma Ray Bursts. After that we started working on our presentations, then we went to lunch and played some more pool. Just now we were trying to put together a power point but we gave up so we're blogging now, more later. Well we tried, but we got pretty much nowhere. After futile hours of presentation preparation we went to a lecture at Bradury on black holes. From there we went to Trinity beverage company and we got buffalo wings, YEAH! After that we went to Fenton hill for an observing session where we observed double stars and how well they could be discerned. We did this to measure the seeing conditions at Fenton. I believe a measure of good seeing conditions is if double stars down to a half arc second can be observed, it is considered bad seeing if you can't discern stars past two or three arc seconds. (our field of view in the telescope is 30 arc minutes which is about 1800 arc seconds). We drove back to the hotel at about 3:00 in the morning.

Thursday:

Thursday we got to wake up at about 12:00 and then went to Nuke City Foodworks for lunch. After that we spent the rest of the afternoon putting together our presentation and practicing it. At about 6:00 we went to another lecture at the Bradbury on the inside of the sun. From there we went to De Colores for a very good Mexican dinner. After that we drove back to the hotel and spent the rest of the night watching TV, working on the presentation, and playing cards.

Friday:

Well, we got up at about 8:00 this morning for breakfast at the hotel and then we went to Canyon Complex for more presentation. At 1:00 o'clock we took a brief respite for lunch and then came back for more presentation preparation. After we did a dry run rooted out some of our errors and now we are blogging.

Well, we delivered our presentations and I think we did pretty well. In either case, after that we went to the ski hill for a blues concert and played intense games of cards and fusbol. After that we came back and hung out at the park for a few hours, then watched TV and went to bed.

Saturday:

This morning we went to Fenton hill to do an amateur radio broadcast and looked at the MILAGRO facility which uses a huge water pool and photo cells to detect high-energy particles and pinpoint their origins. From there we went to the department store for a little bit and now we are blogging. Later we plan to go roller skating again and then stay up the entire night.